During the nailing of corrugated roofing sheets onto a roof, nails frequently glance away from the convex ridge, rather than driving straight through the ridge as is desirable.
When a nail glances in this way it can even penetrate the metal in a valley between the ridges where rain will cause leaking.
A glancing nail can cause the hammer to strike a person's thumb, resulting in a very badly bruised "black" thumb.
Even though corrugated roofing has been popular for the greater part of a century, no tool to my knowledge has ever been marketed for solving this problem. I am aware of a proposal made in U.S. Pat. No. 1,688,445, issued to I. N. Williams on Oct. 23, 1928, titled "NAIL HOLDER". In this patent the levers were shaped in a curved manner and the jaws were of one piece with the respective levers, so that the only way that would be suggested for making the tool would be to make it by casting the parts. However, cast parts will break quickly when hit with a hammer as would often occur. In my opinion, this is probably a reason why I have not seen the tool of this patent on the market.
It is an object of this invention to provide a nail holding tool, the under surfaces of which are adapted to snugly fit corrugation, ridges, but having the features that the tool is adapted to economical manufacture from materials that can withstand hammer blows, rather than having the problem of being cracked by hammer blows as in the case of cast metal.
I conceive for economical manufacture that the levers of a nail holder could be made of steel bar stock which is economically available and that the forward ends of the levers could be twisted into horizontal planar positions for effective pivotal attachment of the levers together, while yet permitting a bending of the levers transversely of their width in positions for achieving a desired shape and supporting nail holding jaws. Such steel could receive a hammer blow and the blow would tend to be withstood, because the blow would hit the steel bar stock edgewise, although I prefer that the jaws protrude above the levers so that the jaws receive all normal and accurate hammer blows.
I propose that the jaws themselves be made of malleable material, capable of withstanding hammer blows, and I have found that lead is a good material for this purpose. Lead can be cast to a desired shape and yet is malleable, which cannot be said for cast iron.
A further object of this invention is to provide jaws which can be easily held in place by metal screws for economical fabrication.
A further objective is to provide the concept of attaching the jaws to the levers in a manner such that when a vertical set of nail receiving notches in the jaws are in upright nailing position, then the handle ends of the levers will be spaced from adjacent parts of the roofing for accommodating the fingers between the levers and the roofing.
A further object is to provide a nail holder that is suitable for holding nails that are being driven into concrete because the nails are firmly held by good leverage, and because the jaws are solid without openings therethrough, whereby chips of concrete cannot fly up from the point of the nail through any openings in the jaws endangering the eyes of a workman.